This section provides background information related to the present disclosure which is not necessarily prior art.
Counterfeit activity is rampant for various consumer and industrial goods, including in pharmaceuticals and medicine, electronics, food, auto parts, currency, books, stocks and bonds, software, DVDs, CDs, video games, textiles, clothing, handbags, and leather goods, by way of non-limiting example. Counterfeit and pirated consumer goods are estimated to make up 2 to 7% of world trade each year. Multiple estimates place the revenue of this illicit market between $200 and $600 billion dollars per year. As noted above, a wide variety of industries have been impacted by sales of such counterfeit goods, including pharmaceuticals, fashion, electronics, automotive, military and defense, among others.
It is not uncommon for counterfeit or otherwise unauthorized goods to be manufactured, distributed, and sold in direct competition with authentic goods. When such counterfeit goods are sold on the black market, these counterfeit sales deprive businesses and industries of lost sales of authentic goods. Further, poor quality counterfeit products pose potential consumer health and safety risks, and thus potential product liability and quality issues. For example, diminished quality may result in harm or loss of brand goodwill due to consumers associating and confusing authentic goods with poor quality imitation counterfeit products that flood the market. Further, money from such counterfeit sales has been associated with funding of illegal and criminal enterprises, including funding of terrorism and organized crime. Thus, the illegal commercial activities associated with sales of counterfeit items presents a host of other issues, exemplified by international commercial conflicts, environmental issues, public health/safety issues, and national security threats. An ability to authenticate items for counterfeit deterrence is important in many industries.
Anti-counterfeiting measures are used on many different products and in many different markets, ranging from pharmaceutical goods to high fashion items. Currently available anti-counterfeit solutions include barcodes, specialized inks, holograms, vivid logos, radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, near field communication (NFC), and microchips. Generally these efforts can be categorized as visible (readily visible with the human eye) or covert (requiring a specialized detection device or reader). Each of these authentication tools has advantages and disadvantages. Some of them are relatively cheap and therefore widely used, such as holograms. However, many of these existing anti-counterfeit measures rely on technologies that are becoming increasingly easy to duplicate (for example, holograms and specialized inks). The covert tags are somewhat harder to replicate, but the counterfeit goods are not easily detected by the unsuspecting end consumer. Further, devices that require special detection methods are themselves susceptible to hacking by third parties. Some retailers, packaging companies, and shipping services do not place any tags at all because of the cost, complexity of authentication, and undesirable visual appearance of tags. Thus, there is a need for high-tech anti-counterfeit tags that are simple and difficult to create, yet are easily and safely read by the supply chain and end consumer for verification of authenticity and counterfeit deterrence.